


Needing is One Thing

by fizzyblogic (phizzle)



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: M/M, Soul Bond, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 11:58:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/pseuds/fizzyblogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Accidental soulbond fic. Klaus and Stefan are soulbonded, and nobody is happy about it. Except maybe Stefan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needing is One Thing

"There's something powerful in there," Bonnie says, hands on the door.

"Is it my talisman?" Klaus asks, impatient.

"Well I don't think it's a family meal from KFC," Damon says, examining the rusty padlocks. "Someone wanted to keep people out."

"That's not the only lock," Bonnie says. "I'll need a minute."

"Hurry up," Klaus says.

Stefan watches him pace, in the tiny corridor the cave makes. Elena leans close to Stefan and whispers, "There could be anything in there."

"I know. If it's his talisman," he keeps his voice low, but knows Klaus can hear anyway, "maybe he'll leave town."

"Not until I'm sure it's reversed that part of the spell," Klaus throws over his shoulder.

Stefan looks at the door. Bonnie's muttering something, hands hovering over the surface. Damon catches Stefan's eye and gives him a pointed look, and Stefan nods. He knows what he has to do.

Bonnie gets the door open after a while, and Klaus pushes past everyone to get into the room. Stefan follows, dogging his heels. It's a small room, with trunks and cases lining the walls, making it feel smaller. It doesn't help that it's carved out of solid rock, either.

On top of the pile of trunks in the nearest corner, a small disc sits, glowing. There's a symbol on it, and Stefan steps closer to get a good look. "Ah ah," Klaus says, hand stretching out toward it. "This belongs to me."

Stefan darts for it. Their hands touch it at the same second, there's a blinding flash of light, and they're thrown back. Stefan lands heavily on some cases, denting the lid of the topmost one and buckling one of the others below it. He blinks, white spots clouding his vision, until he can see Klaus sprawled over some half-collapsed trunks on the other side of the small room.

"What happened?" Bonnie calls. She's stepping over trunks, a few of which have leaked their contents. There's books, small objects, cascades of loose paper.

"There was something," Stefan says, trying to clear his head. He can hear a sort of ringing, and it's starting to settle into a regular pattern. Like a heartbeat. "It looked like a talisman."

"Where is it?" Bonnie's at the back of the room now, where the disc was.

Stefan struggles to his feet, and without thinking, holds his hand out to Klaus. "Right where you're standing," he says, Klaus tugging on his hand to get up. "On that trunk."

Bonnie points. "This trunk?" Stefan nods. "There's nothing there now."

"What?" Stefan rushes over to check, but Bonnie's right. "It was _here_."

"I think it destroyed itself," Bonnie says. Klaus hasn't said anything yet, but Stefan turns, because it feels like he's about to.

"What just happened?" Klaus asks. He's staring at Stefan.

"I don't know. Guess it wasn't your talisman, though." Stefan feels strangely disappointed. Klaus is still staring at him.

"You helped me up," he says. The sound in Stefan's ears is definitely a heartbeat, now a background buzz. It's like his ears are automatically picking it out among everything else.

Damon, who is shining a flashlight in from the doorway, says, "Yeah, what was that about?"

Stefan looks at the doorway. Elena and Damon are shining flashlights in, playing the light over the walls and the trunks and Stefan and Klaus's faces. "I don't know," Stefan says. "I didn't really think about it."

"We need to get all this stuff somewhere I can go through it," Bonnie says. "I have no idea what any of these things are or what they do. Nobody touch anything else, okay?"

"How can we take things if we can't touch them?" Damon says, squeezing through the doorway.

"You can touch the trunks," Bonnie rolls her eyes. "Come on."

Klaus reaches over and grabs a trunk, hauling it to the door, sidestepping Elena carefully on his way. Stefan picks up the one nearest him and follows.

"Sorry we haven't found it yet," Stefan says. He lays a hand on Klaus's shoulder when he's put his trunk down.

"I'm sure it's here somewhere," Klaus says. His shirt is riding up slightly as he drops the trunk on top of Stefan's. Stefan stares at the small patch of skin between Klaus's shirt and pants, then shakes himself.

It takes all of them a half hour to get everything out of the room, and then they have to take several trips to the entrance of the caves, then to Damon's car. Stefan offers to go home and grab his own car, and Bonnie nods gratefully, so he runs there and drives back. They pile up his trunk and back seat, and Klaus makes the first run with him, in the passenger seat, making sure none of the cases open and spill their contents.

"Are you okay?" Stefan asks, after a surprisingly comfortable silence. It's a couple miles to the boarding house, so they have time to talk. "I feel weird, after that ... whatever it was." He can still hear the heartbeat.

"Yeah, I'm. I don't feel any different." He's lying, Stefan can tell.

"You do, I can feel it." Then he hears what he just said. "Uh, how can I feel that?"

Klaus is looking at him. "I don't know."

"Well, can you feel anything about me?"

"Not much that I didn't already." He shifts, turning to look out the window. "I have a strange urge to protect your loved ones, though." He looks back at Stefan, annoyed. "I hate your loved ones."

"The feeling's mutual." Stefan pauses. "Actually, I don't hate Elijah."

"What about Rebekah?" There's something under it, a simmering anger that Stefan realizes, with a jolt, is jealousy.

"Went off her a long time ago. You're jealous."

Klaus doesn't say anything for a minute. "I think Bonnie has some explaining to do."

When they get back to the caves, Damon's car is gone, and so are Damon and Elena. "What did that thing do to us?" Klaus growls, when they're barely out of the car. Bonnie looks taken aback.

"I told you, I don't know. I have no idea what it was, and it's gone now. Why?"

"We're feeling strange," Stefan explains, laying a warning hand on Klaus's arm. "Protective. I can feel what he's feeling, when he's lying. I think I can hear his heart." _I want him_ , he doesn't say. That's not new, but it's harder to push away than it has been for almost ninety years.

"Maybe it was some kind of bonding spell," Bonnie says, eyes on Stefan's hands. He looks down and realizes that one of them is gripping one of Klaus's. "I didn't even know those exist."

Stefan tugs Klaus away by the hand, out of her earshot. "Look, let's just get these trunks loaded up and take them home, okay? We can deal with this later."

"This is —"

"It's _not_ Bonnie's fault," Stefan cuts him off. "She had no idea. None of us did. So let's just do what we came here to do, and figure this out tomorrow." The desire to throw him onto a bed, rip off his clothes and lick him all over assaults Stefan with such brute force that he has to physically stagger back. "We'll go through those books ourselves if we have to," he adds. He's still holding Klaus's hand. He drops it, quickly.

They load up the car. Damon pulls up as they're doing the last of it. "I took Elena home, told her I needed the room," Damon says, indicating the rest of the cases. Stefan nods at him.

"See you at home," he says, and gets into his car. With Klaus. He'd offer to switch, take Bonnie with him, but Klaus alone in a car with Damon is always a bad idea.

The silence this time is tense, but still somehow _right_. Stefan grips the steering wheel as hard as he can without breaking it, and concentrates on not blurting out all the thoughts crowding his head. _I love you_ competes with _Fuck me, please_ and _Why have I been shutting this away all this time, I've wanted you forever_ and _I loved you even more than I loved Rebekah, I just never had the guts to say_ and _You have no idea what a relief it is not to have to fight this any more_. He's too busy fighting off the rest of them that one thought does make it out of his mouth. "When we find out what it did, that means Bonnie can reverse it, right? I don't want it reversed."

Klaus is silent. Staring at him, probably. Stefan can feel a ball of complex emotions coming off him like heat. "You don't?"

"I don't — I don't know where that came from." Stefan wrestles down everything he wants to say. "I think it did something to us, something that — maybe it stopped us fighting what was there." A sudden thought occurs to him, and it feels like the bottom just fell out of the world. "What — what do you feel about me? I mean, what did you feel before this?"

"The same thing I do now," says Klaus. His voice is tense, like he's fighting not to say things too.

"That's not an answer." Stefan grits his teeth. "Do you love me?"

"Why?" Klaus isn't going to answer, not like this, so Stefan swerves to the side of the road, stops the car, undoes his seatbelt, and takes Klaus's face in his hands.

"Fuck you," he breathes, and kisses him hard.

Klaus doesn't move for a second, and when he does, he throws Stefan off him, against the driver's side window. "Don't play with me," he growls.

"I'm not _playing_. I love you," he says, surprised into letting it past his determined barriers.

"Great. It was a love spell." Klaus sinks down in his seat. "It's never real, with you. First I had to compel you just so you'd stop fighting me. Then you tried to destroy my family and desiccated me. Now you love me because of a spell. What happened to friendship?"

Stefan feels like he's falling into a bottomless pit, face first, despair rising up to meet him. "I loved you before," he says, because why the fuck not get his heart ripped out _thoroughly_. "In the 20s. I never would've done anything, Rebekah would have killed me. Then — then I didn't know you, and you hurt so many people I care about, and you hurt _me_ , and everything I felt for you I had to bury. It wasn't a love spell, it just stopped me burying it. That's all." He starts the car again, gets them back on the road. "Not that it matters, all you ever wanted was friendship."

Klaus doesn't say anything on the way back to the boarding house. He helps Stefan get the cases inside, hauling the heaviest of the trunks himself, and when the last of them is stacked in the third spare bedroom, under sheets, Klaus stands in the doorway.

Stefan stands up, dusting his hands off. "Thanks. For helping. You want a ride home?"

"Did you really love me? When we were friends, I mean." Klaus isn't looking at him. That complex ball of emotions presses at Stefan's body like a physical weight.

"Yeah," Stefan says. The despair lightens slightly. He takes a step closer. "I really did."

"What about yesterday? Did you love me then?"

"I've been trying not to have feelings for you for months," Stefan says, then goes for the truth. "So I don't know. Probably. I hated you, too."

"But you don't hate me now." There's a cautious set to his shoulders.

"I don't. Do you hate me?" Stefan takes another step closer, hope beginning to take hold.

"No. I didn't yesterday, either." Klaus closes his eyes and says, "I always wanted it to be real. Not like this."

Stefan closes the distance between them, tentatively reaching out, brushing his fingertips over Klaus's hip through his pants. "Do you mean what it sounds like you mean?" he asks, head tilting instinctively. He hears Klaus swallow.

"Don't make me say it," Klaus whispers, eyes still closed. Stefan nudges him with his nose until Klaus's head is tilted just right, then leans in and kisses him.

Klaus makes a tiny sound in his throat, then kisses back. It's a slow kiss, Stefan cupping Klaus's jaw, Klaus's hands bunching in Stefan's shirt. Everything else just stops, until nothing exists for Stefan but the feel of Klaus's mouth on his.

"Uh," a voice intrudes. Stefan ignores it. "I think we should figure out what that thing was."

"Yeah," another voice says, annoying buzz in Stefan's ear. He just keeps kissing Klaus, until someone pulls him away.

"Hey —"

"Easy now, brother." Damon holds him, arms wrapped around his chest, pulling him back into the third spare bedroom. Stefan trips over a trunk. Damon steadies him. "You've been whammied by some magic doodad, no making out with the hybrid. Okay?"

"Damon," Stefan growls, "let go of me." Klaus is just standing in the doorway, Bonnie in front of him. "Bonnie, don't hurt him."

"I'm not," Bonnie says, not moving. Klaus is staring at Stefan.

"I think the spell took away his hate," Klaus says. He's talking to Bonnie, but doesn't take his eyes from Stefan's. Stefan doesn't look away either.

"Yeah, and made him want to stick his tongue down your throat," Damon says.

"I already wanted to do that," Stefan says, absently. "Though maybe not down his throat."

Across the room, he hears Klaus swallow and his heart thud louder.

"Gross," Damon says, letting go of him. Stefan rushes to Klaus's side in a second. "You actually like this guy?"

"Yes," Stefan says. Bonnie steps aside, and Stefan takes Klaus's hand again. "Make yourself scarce, Damon."

" _Oh_ no." Damon yanks him away from Klaus again. "I will chain you up in the basement before I let you do something you'll regret when we reverse whatever spell is on you."

"Chains," Klaus grins. "Now there's an idea."

"That is disgusting." Damon shoves Stefan past Klaus and Bonnie, and frog marches him to his room. "Klaus. Get out. Now."

"I'd like to see you stop me," Klaus says. He's a pace or two behind them. Stefan twists around in Damon's grip to look at him.

Klaus grabs for his hand again, and Stefan ducks out from under Damon's arms. Their hands touch, and they run, out the front door before Damon even knows they're gone.

They go to the woods, where Stefan hunts, and Klaus throws him against a tree. He's on him the next second, kissing hard and frantic. The tree groans beneath Stefan's back, which is when he realizes Klaus is pushing him into it with his whole body. Stefan starts getting hard, grinding against him, grasping at his shirt, getting one hand under it and splaying it over the small of Klaus's back.

There's a blur, and Klaus is pulled off him. Damon throws him aside and grabs for Stefan.

"Bad decision," Klaus says, and shoves something into Damon from behind. Damon falls to the ground, grunting in pain. Klaus grabs Stefan's hand, and they run further into the woods.

They only stop when they get to the falls. "What did you do to him?" Stefan asks. Klaus is tugging his hand, pulling him behind the waterfall. There's a small space between the water cascading and the rock wall; big enough for two people to stand in, but not so big they won't get wet.

"Relax, he'll be fine. He'll just have to walk home." Klaus grasps Stefan's shirt, soaked with spray. "Take these clothes off."

Stefan does, as fast as he can, watching Klaus undress. Their clothes in a sodden heap tossed to the side, Klaus backs Stefan into the rock wall. Their cocks line up, and Stefan tips his head back. Klaus trails kisses over his exposed neck.

They rock their hips together for a minute, then Klaus wraps a hand around both their cocks. "I've wanted to do this," Klaus moans, "since the second I met you."

"Fuck, me too," Stefan pants, tilting his hips up, one hand grabbing Klaus's ass.

Stefan comes an indeterminate time later, kissing Klaus as though his life depends on it, Klaus's hand squeezing out every last wave of his orgasm. Klaus comes a minute later, Stefan on his knees, sucking him hard and delicious, Klaus's fingers tangled in his hair.

"We should probably go home," Stefan says, standing up. Klaus pulls him close, kisses him softly. "Get out of those wet clothes."

Klaus smiles, their mouths still inches apart. "Excellent idea."

They yank their clothes on and run, the motion drying them by the time they get back to the boarding house. It's empty, and Stefan leads Klaus to his bedroom. They almost tear their clothes getting them off again, and fall into Stefan's bed. Neither of them are hard, but they still roll over, switching up who's on top, kissing deeply, their entire bodies touching everywhere they can reach.

Stefan wakes up the next morning, Klaus curled against his side. Damon is sitting in his desk chair, reading an unfamiliar book. "Don't do anything R-rated," Damon warns. "Elena's downstairs."

"Well isn't that just marvelous," Klaus mumbles into Stefan's chest.

Stefan kisses him, ignoring Damon's small disgusted noise. Klaus smiles into it.

They jerk each other off in the shower, staying quiet (Klaus wouldn't care, but Stefan insists), and head downstairs together. Stefan realizes when they get to the sitting room that they're holding hands again, but he doesn't break contact.

Elena looks up. She seems hurt, and turns away as Stefan sits on one end of a couch, Klaus settling next to him. "What is this," Stefan says, "a war meeting?"

"We need to figure out what that thing did to you," Elena says, not looking at him.

"It took away my hate," Stefan says. "I don't hate Klaus any more, okay?"

Elena turns to him with a disgusted look. "How could you? After everything he's done to us —"

"Magic, love," Klaus says. "All the things I did to you were why he wasn't with me before. The _only reason_ he wasn't with me before." He squeezes Stefan's hand, pointedly. Stefan can feel him bristling, defensive, a deep ocean of jealousy tugging at him.

"Stefan? Is that true?" Elena hasn't sounded this upset in a long, long time. Stefan can't help feeling bad for it, but he nods.

"It's true. I'm sorry."

Klaus squeezes his hand again.

"Look," Bonnie says, "we're going to go through all the books that were in that room. I was sent there for a reason, but we'll look for something to reverse this, too. The talisman that you touched — what did it look like?"

"There was a symbol on it," Stefan says. "I can draw it for you." He gets up to fetch paper and a pencil, Klaus letting go of his hand for it. Stefan draws the symbol, bigger than life, and hands the paper to Bonnie.

"I don't recognize it," she says. "I'll look in all the grimoires I have, but it'll probably be in those books somewhere."

"We'll keep looking." Damon holds up the book he was reading in Stefan's room. "In the meantime, maybe you two spellbirds could be apart for five seconds."

"Do we have to?" Stefan asks, staring him down.

"You promised Elena you'd take her bunny-hunting," Damon says, holding his gaze, steady.

"No, Damon, it's okay," Elena says. "I don't want to go with him now anyway."

"I really ought to go home, see my sister," Klaus says. Stefan stops glaring at Damon to check the sincerity in Klaus's voice. It feels almost like Klaus doesn't want to make trouble.

"You sure?" Stefan asks, quiet.

"Yeah. Come over later? I could make you dinner."

Stefan smiles, a slow happiness spreading in his chest. "By 'make', do you mean 'compel'?"

"Yes," Klaus says, leaning his forehead against Stefan's, "though if you'd rather, I could cook something. Or catch a fox."

"Wait, you're supporting him in his bunny diet?" Damon sounds incredulous.

"I know how hard it is for him to resist the kill," Klaus says. He doesn't take his eyes from Stefan's, but his voice is pointed, aimed at Damon. "And I know how important it is to him not to become Ripper again."

"I thought you liked Ripper," Stefan says.

"I do." Klaus slides his fingertips under Stefan's shirt, circles them on his waist. "I like you all the time, though. Not just when you're Ripper."

"Anyone else nauseated?" Damon says. Stefan hears the rustle of hands shooting up, but he doesn't care.

"I'll see you later, then," Stefan says, and leans in. Klaus kisses him lightly, ignoring the ughs from Elena and Damon.

"Come over around eight. Or earlier." Klaus smiles, kisses him again, then gets up and leaves. Stefan leans his head against the couch, watching him go.

" _Enough_." Damon kicks his shin. "Stop acting like some love-struck teenager. It's gross."

"Vampires don't get nauseated," Stefan says. "And I'm not acting like a teenager."

"Yes," Elena says, "you are." She stands up. "I'm hungry."

"I'll come with you," Damon says. " _You_ ," he points at Stefan, "stay. Help Bonnie. Get reading." He throws the book at him.

Stefan catches it. He can hear them hugging when they're outside, Elena talking, too quietly for him to make out words. He can guess what she's saying, and he does feel bad for what he's putting her through. There isn't a chance for them while she has feelings for Damon, but that doesn't make it any better.

He opens the book to roughly where Damon left off, and starts reading.

*

He shows up to Klaus's place that evening with a small whisky bottle he'd poured a couple blood bags into. Rebekah answers the door, and says, "Oh. It's you. I'm going out." She pushes past him, and Stefan steps inside.

Klaus emerges from a nearby room and catches his confused look. "She isn't taking it very well," he says. They rush at each other, and Stefan breathes in his scent as Klaus wraps his arms around him.

"I brought blood," Stefan says, when the hug breaks. He holds up the bottle. "Human, for you."

"Thank you." Klaus takes the bottle. "There's a fox penned up in the yard, and I caught a few rabbits."

"Really?"

"Yes. I meant it, Stefan. I like you all the time, and if you need to be on a non-human diet, I'll respect that."

Stefan kisses him, then says, "Okay, but that talisman did _something_ to you. You've always tried to get me to kill again."

"Because that's who you are. And it’s who you were when you liked me," Klaus says. "Truth be told, you're inconveniently messy when you're Ripper. That's why I had to leave you behind in the first place, you'd have brought Mikael down on us. Maybe you did."

"Oh. Sorry."

Klaus shrugs. "Let bygones be bygones. The bastard's dead, and we're still here. Now, why don't we have some dinner."

Klaus pours a tumbler of blood and stands at the back door, watching while Stefan stalks the fox across the yard. The hunt isn't long; Stefan heads it off when it tries to run, grabs it and drains it. Its blood tastes okay, life-sustaining, not the heady rush of human blood, but it satisfies his hunger nonetheless. He finishes off the three rabbits cowering in a box in a corner of the yard, and goes back inside with Klaus.

"Let's get drunk and fuck," Klaus says, beaming at him.

"Why wait until we're drunk," Stefan says, pulling Klaus close. "I haven't seen you all day." He kisses him, tasting traces of human blood on his tongue. It's a rush, and Stefan grasps at him. It's not so much that he's in danger of doing any damage or giving in, but it's a glorious taste.

Stefan could get used to this.

*

Bonnie arrives when they're having breakfast. Stefan is licking a little human blood off Klaus's tongue, straddling his lap, when Rebekah clears her throat. "Nik, you have a visitor."

Stefan slides off Klaus's lap and into his own chair. Bonnie sits across the table from them, taking a book out of her bag. "The talisman you touched, it was an emotional binding spell. It bound your emotions together, so you'd know how each other were feeling, even _feel_ how each other were feeling. It's dangerous magic, but people sometimes do it as part of a marriage, to feel as close to each other as possible."

Stefan glances at Klaus. There's a shut off feeling coming from him, a deep hurt with shuttered doors closing on it. _He thinks I only love him now because he loves me_ , Stefan realizes. He reaches for Klaus's hand, but Klaus pulls away. "Can you undo it?" he asks, voice even but strained.

"Yes." She taps something into her phone, and says, "I need a little help for it."

Jeremy walks in a minute later. He doesn't look at Klaus or Stefan. "Is she here?" Bonnie asks.

"She's here. She says she's ready."

"Okay, Grams." Bonnie holds her arms out.

"She's there. You can start now," Jeremy says, and Bonnie starts muttering.

"Are you sure about this?" Stefan whispers to Klaus. "I don't want to go back to hating you."

Klaus says nothing for a minute. When he does speak, his voice is a mask of anger. "I told you. I always wanted it to be real."

Stefan can feel the hurt under it, doesn't want to stop feeling this way. He opens his mouth to stop Bonnie, but at that second, there's a rush of wind or light or something and he falls back against the chair.

He can't feel the press of Klaus's emotions. He can't hear his heartbeat, and the urge to kiss him is easy to suppress. "There," Klaus says, standing up. "That's better. Now get out of my house, all of you."

Bonnie doesn't need telling twice, but Jeremy lingers. "Sheila says to be careful," he says to Stefan, and then he follows Bonnie out.

"Klaus —"

"All of you, I said." His face is completely closed off, shut down. He's standing, making as though to leave or throw Stefan out physically.

"Hey." Stefan steps up into his space, grabs Klaus's wrists with his hands. "I'm not going anywhere."

"The spell's off. Now you can run along home to your precious Elena, and find my talisman so I can make more hybrids without her blood."

"I'm not with Elena. I'm not _going to_ be with Elena. She has feelings for Damon, and I ..." He trails off, not letting go of Klaus's wrists. "I have feelings for you," he finishes.

"You hate me," Klaus says.

"Yeah," Stefan agrees, because now the spell's gone, he does. "But I also love you. And I don't want to ignore that any more."

Klaus looks at him, the same way he did in the second before he smiled, back in Chicago, when Stefan called him a king. "What," he says, not a question.

Stefan kisses him, soft so he can break it easily. Klaus doesn't move for a second, and when he does, it's to turn the kiss deeper. They shift so their bodies are more in line, and Stefan lets go of Klaus's wrists to slide his hands under his shirt.

"See," Stefan says, when the kiss slows and breaks. "Now it's real."

Klaus smiles against his mouth. "Good," he says, and kisses him again.


End file.
